Post by devilinthedetails on Jan 8, 2023 6:38:42 GMT 10
Title: A Form of Resignation
Summary: Dom has a conversation with Raoul about Kel. Somewhat of a companion piece and sequel to "Parental Permission" but makes sense independently as well. Post Lady Knight.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: I love the idea of asexual Kel (especially because I am asexual myself and Kel is the Tamora Pierce protagonist I relate to the most) but I also have a big soft spot for the Kel/Dom pairing, and through fanfic, I can have both. So this fic isn't intended as any sort of rejection of an asexual Kel. It is just me scratching a Kel/Dom itch!
I imagine that Dom would have enough respect for Raoul that he would feel he had to get Raoul's seal of approval as it were before he proposed to Kel if he was going to do that, and I picture Raoul as being fairly protective of Kel (his blowup at Wyldon when Kel disappears behind enemy lines springs to mind) and honestly their relationship is one of the most wholesome things about the Protector of the Small books so I couldn't resist giving a small nod to it here.
A Form of Resignation
“I’ve come to see you about a matter of paperwork, sir.” Dom had, more pressingly and pertinently, entered his Knight Commander’s office at Fort Steadfast to speak about a matter of the heart. Of affections. But speaking of paperwork was easier. More routine and straightforward. Less complicated. Carried less attendant risks of treading on treacherous ground. Slipping into the mire of conversational quicksand.
“Paperwork.” Lord Raoul pulled a droll face. “My favorite pastime.”
“Don’t feed me that line.” Dom wrinkled his nose. “At your rank, you don’t have to fill it out yourself. You have clerks to manage it.”
At the company level and above, commanders had the blessing of clerks bestowed on them. It was the best argument for being promoted to a captain in Dom’s studied opinion. The greatest perk of the position.
“What paperwork do you have for my clerks then?” Lord Raoul grinned like the rascal he was. Reclining in his chair.
“Nothing definite yet.” Dom cleared his throat. Heard a scratchiness that he wished he could blame on a hay fever provoked by the changing seasons of the north but knew could only be created by nerves. Churning in his gut. Climbing up his esophagus. Meathead could probably provide a detailed anatomical description if asked. Dom would never ask. Not desiring to know the details that would likely make him queasy. “There’s a girl I’d like to propose to. If she accepts, I’d resign my commission. I wanted to give you a heads-up. Forewarned is forearmed as Captain Flyndan would say.”
“You’ll be a hard man to replace, and you know how I hate breaking in raw recruits.” Lord Raoul offered an exaggerated sigh. Lifted his hands in mock surrender. “But who am I to stand in the way of true love? Who is the lucky woman who has stolen your heart?”
“I’d like to talk about that with you too, sir.” Dom suddenly felt very aware of his own body. His own skin. Including his sweaty palms. Sweaty palms. Those had never plagued him before. Even on a battlefield facing Immortals and killing machines. Curse it. “It’s Kel. It’s her I’ve fallen in love with.”
He took a deep breath. Feeling very much a foreigner in a strange territory. Lost in a land in which he had never navigated before. They did not talk of love in the Own. Only joked about flirting with pretty girls and tumbling them in quick affairs devoid of any meaning. Any encumbrance on a bachelor’s freedom to roam the romantic field. Went on without truly finding his footing, “She’s the one I want to marry. I’d request your permission to propose to her.”
“Kel.” Lord Raoul whistled. “Then it’s you who is the lucky man, Dom.”
“Very lucky indeed.” Dom made what he hoped was a subtle swipe of his sweaty palms against his breeches. Imagined that the subtleness failed. That he appeared clumsy and awkward. Utterly unworthy of Kel.
“You don’t need my permission to propose to her,” continued Lord Raoul. “She’s not my daughter, I’m not her father, and she’d probably think that tradition is a cartload of stinky old horse manure anyway.”
“You love her like a daughter.” Dom had seen the proof of that when Lord Raoul dispatched his squad to Scanra after a Kel who had gone to rescue her captured refugees. “And she respects you like a father.”
“The choice is still hers.” Lord Raoul paused. Then asked, “How long have you loved her?”
“For years,” Dom admitted. Cheeks flaming like midnight torches. Beacons in the dark. “Since my cousin Neal started writing to me about how brave and strong she was in training. How level-headed and calm she was under pressure. Unlike him.”
Could you fall in love with someone without having met them? Glimpsing them only through letters not even written by their own fingers? Reading words filtered through the keen perspective of another? Perhaps you could if the letters were inked by a person with as passionate and poetic a flare with the quill as Nealan of Queenscove. Dom felt as if that was what had happened to him, and in love, he was discovering that feeling so often was reality. Everything else empty illusion.
“Before you started stroking Kel’s hand after her failed experiments with carpentry as a squire.” An expression of shrewd amusement crossed Lord Raoul’s features.
Dom remembered with an embarrassed swoop of his stomach how Lord Raoul had hurried over the moment Dom had taken her calloused hands to inspect the damage she had inflicted on herself in the name of carpentry and duty.
“I wasn’t stroking her hands,” protested Dom. A defensive reflex. “I was merely assessing her injuries. And you put a stop to that soon enough.”
“Of course I did.” Lord Raoul arched an eyebrow. A gesture Kel seemed to have picked up from him over the years of her squireship. “I couldn’t have one of my sergeants stroking my squire’s hands in public, could I? That’d be indecent, and I just can’t abide indecency among my men.”
“Yes, you are a stickler for priority.” Irony infused Dom’s drawl. “Just ask Captain Flyndan. He’ll attest to it.”
Lord Raoul’s second-in-command had, in fact, engaged in multiple tirades about the esteemed Knight Commander’s notorious lack of formality within Dom’s hearing.
“I like you, Dom–” Lord Raoul leaned forward– “but if you ever hurt Kel, I’ll have to kill you by a thousand cuts like they do to traitors in Jindazhen.”
Jindazhen. A vast empire west even of the Yamani Islands. Even more shrouded in mist and myth than the Yamani Islands. Who could say if the courts of Jindazhen truly did execute their most vile traitors by a thousand cuts or if those accounts were only fanciful legends concocted by the active imaginations and wagging tongues of sailors and merchants?
Either way, the threatened death by a thousand cuts sounded sufficiently menacing that Dom vowed with what he prayed was appropriate solemnity, “I’d never harm her, sir. No matter what. You have my word on that.”
Summary: Dom has a conversation with Raoul about Kel. Somewhat of a companion piece and sequel to "Parental Permission" but makes sense independently as well. Post Lady Knight.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: I love the idea of asexual Kel (especially because I am asexual myself and Kel is the Tamora Pierce protagonist I relate to the most) but I also have a big soft spot for the Kel/Dom pairing, and through fanfic, I can have both. So this fic isn't intended as any sort of rejection of an asexual Kel. It is just me scratching a Kel/Dom itch!
I imagine that Dom would have enough respect for Raoul that he would feel he had to get Raoul's seal of approval as it were before he proposed to Kel if he was going to do that, and I picture Raoul as being fairly protective of Kel (his blowup at Wyldon when Kel disappears behind enemy lines springs to mind) and honestly their relationship is one of the most wholesome things about the Protector of the Small books so I couldn't resist giving a small nod to it here.
A Form of Resignation
“I’ve come to see you about a matter of paperwork, sir.” Dom had, more pressingly and pertinently, entered his Knight Commander’s office at Fort Steadfast to speak about a matter of the heart. Of affections. But speaking of paperwork was easier. More routine and straightforward. Less complicated. Carried less attendant risks of treading on treacherous ground. Slipping into the mire of conversational quicksand.
“Paperwork.” Lord Raoul pulled a droll face. “My favorite pastime.”
“Don’t feed me that line.” Dom wrinkled his nose. “At your rank, you don’t have to fill it out yourself. You have clerks to manage it.”
At the company level and above, commanders had the blessing of clerks bestowed on them. It was the best argument for being promoted to a captain in Dom’s studied opinion. The greatest perk of the position.
“What paperwork do you have for my clerks then?” Lord Raoul grinned like the rascal he was. Reclining in his chair.
“Nothing definite yet.” Dom cleared his throat. Heard a scratchiness that he wished he could blame on a hay fever provoked by the changing seasons of the north but knew could only be created by nerves. Churning in his gut. Climbing up his esophagus. Meathead could probably provide a detailed anatomical description if asked. Dom would never ask. Not desiring to know the details that would likely make him queasy. “There’s a girl I’d like to propose to. If she accepts, I’d resign my commission. I wanted to give you a heads-up. Forewarned is forearmed as Captain Flyndan would say.”
“You’ll be a hard man to replace, and you know how I hate breaking in raw recruits.” Lord Raoul offered an exaggerated sigh. Lifted his hands in mock surrender. “But who am I to stand in the way of true love? Who is the lucky woman who has stolen your heart?”
“I’d like to talk about that with you too, sir.” Dom suddenly felt very aware of his own body. His own skin. Including his sweaty palms. Sweaty palms. Those had never plagued him before. Even on a battlefield facing Immortals and killing machines. Curse it. “It’s Kel. It’s her I’ve fallen in love with.”
He took a deep breath. Feeling very much a foreigner in a strange territory. Lost in a land in which he had never navigated before. They did not talk of love in the Own. Only joked about flirting with pretty girls and tumbling them in quick affairs devoid of any meaning. Any encumbrance on a bachelor’s freedom to roam the romantic field. Went on without truly finding his footing, “She’s the one I want to marry. I’d request your permission to propose to her.”
“Kel.” Lord Raoul whistled. “Then it’s you who is the lucky man, Dom.”
“Very lucky indeed.” Dom made what he hoped was a subtle swipe of his sweaty palms against his breeches. Imagined that the subtleness failed. That he appeared clumsy and awkward. Utterly unworthy of Kel.
“You don’t need my permission to propose to her,” continued Lord Raoul. “She’s not my daughter, I’m not her father, and she’d probably think that tradition is a cartload of stinky old horse manure anyway.”
“You love her like a daughter.” Dom had seen the proof of that when Lord Raoul dispatched his squad to Scanra after a Kel who had gone to rescue her captured refugees. “And she respects you like a father.”
“The choice is still hers.” Lord Raoul paused. Then asked, “How long have you loved her?”
“For years,” Dom admitted. Cheeks flaming like midnight torches. Beacons in the dark. “Since my cousin Neal started writing to me about how brave and strong she was in training. How level-headed and calm she was under pressure. Unlike him.”
Could you fall in love with someone without having met them? Glimpsing them only through letters not even written by their own fingers? Reading words filtered through the keen perspective of another? Perhaps you could if the letters were inked by a person with as passionate and poetic a flare with the quill as Nealan of Queenscove. Dom felt as if that was what had happened to him, and in love, he was discovering that feeling so often was reality. Everything else empty illusion.
“Before you started stroking Kel’s hand after her failed experiments with carpentry as a squire.” An expression of shrewd amusement crossed Lord Raoul’s features.
Dom remembered with an embarrassed swoop of his stomach how Lord Raoul had hurried over the moment Dom had taken her calloused hands to inspect the damage she had inflicted on herself in the name of carpentry and duty.
“I wasn’t stroking her hands,” protested Dom. A defensive reflex. “I was merely assessing her injuries. And you put a stop to that soon enough.”
“Of course I did.” Lord Raoul arched an eyebrow. A gesture Kel seemed to have picked up from him over the years of her squireship. “I couldn’t have one of my sergeants stroking my squire’s hands in public, could I? That’d be indecent, and I just can’t abide indecency among my men.”
“Yes, you are a stickler for priority.” Irony infused Dom’s drawl. “Just ask Captain Flyndan. He’ll attest to it.”
Lord Raoul’s second-in-command had, in fact, engaged in multiple tirades about the esteemed Knight Commander’s notorious lack of formality within Dom’s hearing.
“I like you, Dom–” Lord Raoul leaned forward– “but if you ever hurt Kel, I’ll have to kill you by a thousand cuts like they do to traitors in Jindazhen.”
Jindazhen. A vast empire west even of the Yamani Islands. Even more shrouded in mist and myth than the Yamani Islands. Who could say if the courts of Jindazhen truly did execute their most vile traitors by a thousand cuts or if those accounts were only fanciful legends concocted by the active imaginations and wagging tongues of sailors and merchants?
Either way, the threatened death by a thousand cuts sounded sufficiently menacing that Dom vowed with what he prayed was appropriate solemnity, “I’d never harm her, sir. No matter what. You have my word on that.”